Alston & Bird Squeezes the Secretaries
Firms everywhere are trying to keep expenses down. For secretaries and administrative assistants at Alston & Bird, this means that overtime is going to be a lot harder to come by. Last week, A&B informed its secretaries of changes in the firm’s overtime policy:
As you know, from time to time we review our HR policies and practices to determine if they continue to meet the needs of the firm and our employees. In our continuing effort to hold the line on expenses and minimize our overtime costs, the firm has made the decision to revise our overtime policy for our professional staff, secretaries, and paralegals. After review of our current policy, we found that there were two areas that were outdated and not consistent with what the law allows and what other professional service firms are doing. As a result, we have made two changes to our policy.
Alston & Bird just happened to figure out that its overtime policy was inconsistent with the law? Well, I’m glad the firm — the law firm — is clearing that up.
We’ll take a look at the legal inconsistency after the jump.
A close reading reveals that Alston’s overtime police isn’t “inconsistent” with anything:
The second change relates to when overtime pay begins. The U.S. Department of Labor requires that employers pay overtime after 40 hours worked. The firm has always been more generous and paid overtime after 37.5 hours/week (35 hours/week in New York).All Offices (Outside of CA):
Effective September 28, 2009, the firm will not pay overtime until after 40 hours/week. Any time worked between 37.5 hours/week (35.0 hours/week in NYC) and 40 hours will be paid at straight time. In addition, any time worked over 37.5 hours (35.0 hours in NYC) must be approved as described above.California Only:
Effective September 28, 2009, the firm will not pay overtime until after 40 hours/week or 8 hours a day. Any time worked between 37.5 hours/week or 7.5 hours/day and 40 hours or 8.0 hours/day will be paid at straight time. In addition, any time worked over 37.5 hours or 7.5 hours/day in CA must be approved as described above.
Just to be clear, the Department of Labor is not forcing A&B to change its overtime policy. Instead, A&B is just deciding to be less generous than it has been in the past. It is totally their call.
It’s probably fair to make it more difficult for secretaries to get overtime. We are in the middle of the Great Recession, after all. But it’s not like Alston & Bird’s previous overtime policy ran afoul of the law. The firm just wants to make another cutback.
Earlier: Deferral Extension Season: Alston & Bird Make Indefinite Deferral
(54) Comments
Comments
FIRSTY McFIRSTERSON STRIKES AGAIN
first to say more sex from secretaries here so they can buy food
old news
what's the FIRST change?
I would squeeze Kash while she played Wii.
Did you see the phote of the light-skinned black guy standing next to the hot blonde? That's what I imagined when I thought about Ellie and Kash.
Where's the other guy--Lat?
Proskauer sucks a fat one!!
Get over it, was just a poorly worded sentence (they wanted to say they new policy is both what the law allows and consistent with what other firms are doing, so just threw a negative in front to describe the status quo) . Not everyone chooses their words as carefully as ATL.
I would let Kash bone me.
Thank you for using the proper title "secretary" instead of the euphemism "administrative assistant." It more accurately captures the duties of this position: reheat coffee, fetch dry cleaning, and purge my inbox.
10--Why in a prestigious firm like yours do you have to reheat your coffee? I dump my tepid coffee and use my Jura Capressa to brew a fresh cup. How do you reheat coffee? In the microwave? Do you pour it back into the caraffe and then put it back on the burner? Please tell us how the elite drink.
Dirty birds.
10--Further to the point, why does she fetch your dry cleaning? My dry cleaning is delivered to my house, where I get dressed. It is so déclassé to walk home with it strung over my shoulder.
JaKe, I want to make some sex with your face.
Shafeef
Hey... when are the impending layoffs coming? Everyone said there would be layoffs in September among the V30, did I miss it?
I admit, I am busy traveling away my deferral stipend so I may have missed a few announcements.
Anyone?
This is getting so moronic. Its a slippery slope and before you know it ATL will turn into a junior high rag and report on things like the increase of the price of sodas or even the switch to cheaper toilet paper at a single firm....
This post is addressed to Commenters #11 and #14:
#11: You are prodigal. The amount of money I save reheating cups of hour-old coffee allows me, in part, to leave tips for waitresses that are worth more than your entire table's bill.
#12: She fetches my dry cleaning and delivers it to my home and, while there, walks my Akita in the gated community and scoops up its feces.
The ship be sinking...
Just saw the rooftop party pics, what a pile of trolls. Couple of cute girls though.
JaKe: Please call my office immediately. We have identified the substance pumped from your stomach last night and need to speak with you.
JaKe,
Please, please, I beg of you. Let me make some sex with your face. Please.
Shafeef
Are that many secretaries really working more than 37.5 hours a week right now anyways? If the attorneys are slow, the secretaries are too.
The problem was that some secretaries had been using the 2.5 hours of OT as part of their regular pay, i.e. automatically billing administrative time to the firm to fluff their paycheck. Since secretaries normally don't bill to the client, the firm had to soak up the cost.
This change forces those secretaries to get approval before they're able to charge the firm for OT.
Agree with 19, looking at the photos there were some cute girls at the rooftop party, wish I had attended. Mr. Lat, please advise if any of the attractive women (particularly the Asians or South Asians) are for-hire providers.
Keep it up 20, you're doing great.
Does anyone else think that EVERY poster with an avatar is the same unemployed, lonely fuck?
I wish Kash were naked and in my office right now. Mystal, not so much.
26 ftw - PE and JE are definitely the same guy - their posts read the same.
Alston just flipped it's secretaries the bird.
29 - Your comment would have been more effective if you had capitalized "Bird"
28, I think you are exactly right about PE and JE...for example, they both respond to other posters with the stuffy, formal: "This post is addressed to Commenter # ___"...to the extent there is any difference, JE has a bit of humor mixed in with his arrogance
Uh, this memo went out many weeks ago at A&B as far as I know (I work there, I remember it). You can tell by the effective dates referenced in the email.
Does ATL just keep stuff in inventory for slow news days and then decide to post them? This site is such a sham and now perpetuates bad stories of the off legal employment market in order to both create and self-feed a frenzy with the sole purpose of generating ad revenues. You are just hurting your readers (such that where actual biglaw lawyers and not autoadmit students actually read this site anymore) in search of your own mighty dollar.
I will not tolerate secretaries that think its about them, when its about the firm, and we cannot make decisions that cost the firm and then go home and just be nonchalant. No. You now what, this is how I believe, I'm from the old school. I believe this: I would rather get my own coffee and answer my own phone and just get penalized all the way until we got to do something else, rather then have a secretary, when I know that that woman is not sold out to be a part of this firm. Its more about them, then it is about the firm! I cannot work with them, cannot scream at them, cannot sleep with them, can't do it. I want cheap workers, I want people that want to work for cheap.
#33 -- you get what you pay for. you wanna pay cheap, you get cheap
Jones Day has taken an identical approach to OT and 40 hours a week. Cutting the staff compensation and benefits puts lots of money in the partners' pockets. So it's OK. It's not about the staff . . . it's about the partners.
Alston & Bird is a shitbox firm full of phony, annoying people. If you don't believe me, check out #32's comment.
Alston & Bird sucks.
Old news. Is this really a big deal? Geez........
I read through all these comments waiting for a good pun about "squeezing" secretaries from the "pounding my secretary in the ass" guy. So disappointed. Where are you?!?
the secretaries have to charge overtime because they don't make shit at that cheap ass firm. i wouldn't even go for an interview there with the pittance they were offering.
As a former employee of a firm that was investigated by the New York City Department of Labor - and found to have illegal overtime and general payment practices - I can say, without a doubt, these guys know exactly what they're doing. They're just cocky enough to think they can get away with it. And usually, I'd think, it works. Why would a new hire or an intern question his/her payment procedures when he/she is still trying to find his/her way to his/her desk? (Man, I went overboard with the egalitarian phrasing there.) My experience is that the cockiness of lawyers always lets them skate by on certain details - until it doesn't.
As a former employee of a firm that was investigated by the New York City Department of Labor - and found to have illegal overtime and general payment practices - I can say, without a doubt, these guys know exactly what they're doing. They're just cocky enough to think they can get away with it. And usually, I'd think, it works. Why would a new hire or an intern question his/her payment procedures when he/she is still trying to find his/her way to his/her desk? (Man, I went overboard with the egalitarian phrasing there.) My experience is that the cockiness of lawyers always lets them skate by on certain details - until it doesn't.
At Paul Hastings, we are proud of our strong Summer Associate Program and the valuable learning experience we offer students.
As proof of our efforts, our firm was recently ranked 12th nationally in the 2009 American Lawyer Summer Associate survey. Our ranking reflects the coordinated efforts and hard work of each of our offices in providing a unique and rewarding program. We are focused and dedicated to attracting and developing the very best talent and to providing best-in-class service to our clients.
Students selected to participate in the Summer Associate program are given the opportunity to work with different partners on a range of assignments and in a variety of practice areas. This comprehensive exposure provides an excellent opportunity to experience first-hand the day-to-day practice of law. Summer Associates may also have the opportunity throughout the summer to attend court and depositions; observe and assist in trials, hearings, and negotiations; and attend client meetings, closings, and related activities.
Alston is a hell of a lot better than the other backwater, niece-fondling firms in Atlanta (that means you McKenna, PoGo, etc.). Even without overtime.
Again, in what is sadly typical of A&B, it is their use of obfuscating phraseology that is to be condemned, if not the erosion of benefits. Instead of simply admitting to difficult economics and announcing a cut-back, they couch the announcement in such a way that an uncareful reader might assume it was a change in law rather than a decision of the partners' committee. A&B has always had a problem with forthrightness.
Ain't it funny how whenever policies are tweaked to better conform to "what other professional service firms are doing," it always results in something being taken away? Geez, if Alston continues to conform, how will it hang on to its previous Fortune ranking, which has already plummeted the past few years from its once-lofty heights?
46- The continued availability of the breast-feeding room will keep them at the top of the Fortune list, silly!
WGM did this in Jan. on the same day that they laid off 20 staffers.
Cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap!!
#46, all those A + B staff members who helped the firm get their PR prize on the "Best Places to Work" list must feel like saps right about now.
This post is addressed to commenter number 10.
Guys in my high school used to purge my inbox all the time. It was no big deal.
Whatever happened to the frat stud meme? It seems somewhat a lost art, along with the late lamented WGWAG.
Either A+B staff is populated with brainless sheep, or management is deluded to think that its move is viewed by its peopleas anything other than naked cost-cutting. There is no shame in cost-cutting, but the memo makes it seem like there is something to hide. Sleazy.
Several law firms have instituted this policy. Typical, the law firm always dreaming of being an investment bank. Well, now that it is straight time between 37.5 and 40, if you don't get your time in on a timely basis, I guess you'll just have to have your a____ handed to you by the partners. No OT, no staying late to do atty. time.
Agree with #8. ATL is trying to make "news" out of nothing.
*yawn* Typical attorneys v. staff bullshit.
Here's a newsflash, JD types: The staff knows you think you're so much smarter - so much more worthwhile as individuals - than they are.
They never get a break from hearing how lucky they are to have attorneys who are willing to employ them to do stupid things like printing attachments to emails and other such nonsense that a 10 year-old could handle.
For experienced staff members who've had any labor and employment litigation experience, Alston's compensation policy for non-exempt employees would not have been overlooked. They knew the deal when they took it.
This article is just another lame excuse for attorneys to point and sneer at non-attorney staff, and giggle about how "dumb" they were for not realizing that the firm's compensation policy was questionable.
So juvenile. You associate types need to grow up.